Background Incorporating environmental sustainability (ES) into engineering education is vital to both individual engineering students' success and to the profession as a whole. This study explores attitudes, conceptions, and misconceptions about ES that students bring to the classroom. A promising framework of design-based research is applied to gauge how instructional innovation can impact student attitudes, conceptions, and misconceptions.Purpose Two questions guided this research: What knowledge and attitudes about ES, particularly those pertaining to engineering, do first-year engineering students have? How can an engineering module focused on life cycle assessment in a first-year engineering course affect students' conceptual understanding to prepare them to develop a robust appreciation of environmental issues and ES in engineering?Design/Method A quantitative research design in the context of a comparative designbased research study was utilized to examine first-year engineering students' environmental awareness coming into the program and changes in their conceptions of ES following their participation in a module that focused on life cycle assessment (LCA).
Results/ConclusionFollowing the participation in the LCA module, the intervention was able to address certain misconceptions and support students' shift to deeper understanding about ES. Students' perceptions regarding the complexity of LCA did not change. Including multifaceted issues such as LCA in the teaching of engineering students seems beneficial.
The aerosolization of microorganisms from aquatic environments is understudied. This article describes a study in which an ice nucleation active (iceC) strain and a nonice nucleation active (ice¡) strain of the bacterium Pseudomonas syringae were aerosolized from aqueous suspensions under artificial laboratory conditions using a collison nebulizer. The aerosolization of P. syringae was not influenced by water temperatures between 5 and 30 C. In general, the culturability (viability) of P. syringae in aerosols increased with temperature between 5 and 30 C. The iceC strain was aerosolized in greater numbers than the ice-strain at all temperatures studied, suggesting a possible connection between the ice nucleation phenotype and aerosol production. Together, our results suggest that P. syringae has the potential to be aerosolized from natural aquatic environments, such as streams, rivers, ponds, and lakes; known reservoirs of P. syringae. Future work is needed to elucidate the mechanisms of aerosolization of P. syringae from natural aquatic systems.
This review summarizes over 250 studies published in 2018 related to the characterization, control, and management of urban stormwater runoff. The review covers three broad themes: (a) quantity and quality characterization of stormwater, (b) control and treatment of stormwater runoff, and (c) implementation and assessment of watershed‐scale green stormwater infrastructure (GSI). Each section provides an overview of the 2018 literature, common themes, and future work. Several themes emerged from the 2018 literature including exploration of contaminants of emerging concern within stormwater systems, characterization and incorporation of vegetation‐driven dynamics in stormwater control measures, and the need for interdisciplinary perspectives on the implementation and assessment of GSI.Practitioner points
Over 250 studies were published in 2018 related to the characterization, control, and treatment of stormwater.
Studies cover general stormwater characteristics, control and treatment systems, and watershed‐scale assessments.
Trends in 2018 include treatment trains, vegetation dynamics, and interdisciplinary perspectives.
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